How times have changed, right? The next project that reaches Soapbox has left me stunned and almost speechless. The artist is Ghetts, the name of the project is “Rebel With a Cause” and the product is a massive change in style. I have been vaguely listening to Ghetts since I was about 16 years old whether that was on Tim Westwood TV or his album “Freedom of Speech” and I can’t believe this is the same rapper.

Ghetts begins the piece with what you expect with production in mind, however there is still a sense that this project is going to take you in a different direction at some point and it doesn’t wrong your instincts that is for sure. Tracks such as “Rude Boy” and “Gas Mark 9” show Ghetts’ ability to remain fresh and consistent with a signature style as it had me nodding my head to a beat and face screwing at great lyrics (quite a picture, I know).

The features from two MCs I am biased towards (Giggs and Rapid) are great. and Ghetts does what he has been doing for his career extremely well for eight tracks. Then you find yourself stumbling into a rapper metamorphosis with “Ghetto No More” as the production slows down and Ghetts slowly changes his tempo and subject matters throughout the track.

We then step out into the abyss that is potentially the new Ghetts with tracks such as “Fatherhood”, “Broken Home” and “Pray” which feature artists such as Cameron Broomfield and Folly Rae for the second half of the piece. The tone completely switches from track 8 (“Rags”) to track 11 (“Times Change”) and it may allude to a change of mind space in Ghetts’ life. It might also be just purely experimental but even though the high lyrical intellect and complexity is consistent throughout, the whole mood of the project switches. So what is my opinion of the piece?

First of all, the production is absolutely genius throughout. Secondly, all featuring artists are exceptional and last but not least, both sides of Ghetto/Ghetts are brilliant in this piece.

You get what you expect from the artist; creatively you then get a surprise for 7/8 tracks and the quality of the music never fluctuates from a high level from track 1 through to 17. This is one of my favourite pieces I have listened to for a long while as it echoes a lot of my views of hip-hop society/rappers and it has a lot of relatable material to the average mans life. Grab “Rebel With a Cause” on iTunes HERE, support this cause and pray 2014 gives us more gems like this.